


Mary’s Days Are Numbered– A Canonical Defense

by TheNavelTreatment



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Analysis, Foreshadowing, Meta, Sherlock Meta, sherlock analysis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-25
Updated: 2014-02-25
Packaged: 2018-01-13 19:21:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1238041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNavelTreatment/pseuds/TheNavelTreatment





	Mary’s Days Are Numbered– A Canonical Defense

Now, before you get the pitchforks out, take a minute, breathe, and think about it. The “Great Mary Civil War” as I call it, has just about been tearing the fandom apart lately.  It’s gotten ugly. More ugly then I ever imagined a discussion about fictional characters ever could be.

 I’m going to be honest; I don’t particularly like Mary. I don’t. You don’t shoot the main protagonist of my favorite show and have me like you.  It just doesn’t happen. And I think Sherlock and John and everyone hugging it out and forgiving her and moving on with life is silly and unrealistic and super naïve.

But to be clear, that is NOT why I think Mary’s going to get the boot (I would guess by the end of the fourth season). No, it really, honestly has nothing to do with that (you don’t have to believe me, but I wanted it out there).

No, Mary isn’t going to stick around because it’s canon. Not BBC canon (at least not yet), but ACD canon.

Moffat and Gatiss are, at heart, ACD fangirls.  They make that quite clear whenever they’re interviewed; _Sherlock_ was born from a mutual love of the source material.  While they’ve certainly modernized it, and made some different creative choices, roughly, they’ve continued to follow the outline that ACD set out. For example (in no particular order):

  * John Watson – invalided home from Afghanistan – different war, same country
  * Hounds of the Baskervilles – there was a real dog that people were tricked into thinking was a monster – true it was a mask instead of a hallucinogenic, but really, same difference
  * Sherlock Holmes getting engaged to break into CAM’s office – actually happens
  * Sherlock Holmes returning to a drug den for a case – actually happens ( _The Man With the Twisted Lip_ )
  * Sherlock Holmes jumping off of a high place to his apparent death to stop Moriarty and then spending years destroying the rest of Moriarty’s network – same in both cases (if you get pissed about the difference between a tall building and a waterfall, you’re just splitting hairs).
  * Mycroft is in on it and helps him in both cases
  * Etc….etc…. (there are TONS more, I’m just tired of typing).



Every major thing that has happened in _Sherlock_ has been predicted by ACD. Yes, they’ve changed little things (I know ‘William Sherlock Scott Holmes” is new) but never anything too vital to the overall story.

The ONE exception to the rule has been Molly, who they’ve said over and over again wasn’t going to stick around because they were AGAINST adding in recurring characters who weren’t in canon, but they liked Loo so much they kept her.

I tend to think this is going to be the only exception.

So what is the overarching story of Mary Morstan in ACD canon?

_Her and John Watson meet, fall in love, marry for a time, and then eventually SHE DIES_.

We don’t ever get a direct explanation for what happens to her, but in _The Adventure of the Empty House_ we get:

 

 “…in some manner he had learned of my own sad bereavement, and his sympathy was in shown in his manner rather than in his words…

 

 And then, in _The Adventure of the Norwood Builder_ :

 

“At the time of which I speak, Holmes had been back for some months, and I at his request had sold my practice and returned to share the old quarters in Baker Street.”

 

(Yes, I know we’ve already had _The Empty Hearse_ , but Moffat and Gatiss like to mix and match different pieces of ACD stories, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable that they swapped out Mary’s death and put it somewhere else in their grand scheme).

So, based on this knowledge, I can now wholly and unequivocally say I DO NOT CARE ABOUT MARY

  * I don’t care that apparently she’s a cross between Lara Croft and Helen Mirren’s character in _RED_
  * I do not care that she’s a psychopath who’s using John (other than that it makes her sort of awful).
  * I don’t care at one point she seemed like a nice person
  * I don’t care if she’s Moran.
  * I don’t care that she’s pregnant



I don’t care about any of it, really, because Mary’s days are numbered. I don’t know if they’ll kill her off or have her leave or have John leave her or what, but I do know….

The end game, because there is only so far that Moffat and Gatiss will stray from original canon, is that she’s out of the picture and John is back with Sherlock in Baker Street.

Arthur Conan Doyle spoiled her fate 119 years ago and I’m alright with that. [  
](http://the-navel-treatment.tumblr.com/tagged/sherlock)

 

 


End file.
